The Voyage of the HoppergrassPearson, Edmund Lester
General
The Voyage of the Hoppergrass
Pearson, Edmund Lester
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Pirates -- Juvenile fiction
"And he grabbed another couple of pistols out of his boots, and
began firing once more. At this, the pirates lost their patience.
They gave a deep roar, like a herd of angry buffalo, and closed in
on their Captain. He jumped back, and continued to fire. They
swarmed around him, and in a few minutes that group of pirates,
who had always lived together like brothers, had changed into a
blood-thirsty mob. Knives flashed and pistols cracked. Some of
them hit each other in their excitement, and that made them so
angry that they turned and fought amongst themselves. In the
meantime, the Captain was firing his pistols and slashing with his
cutlasses, and making terrible havoc amongst his followers. In ten
minutes all was over. Of that proud band of pirates, once the
terror of the Spanish Main, only two men were left alive. These
were Black Pedro himself, slightly wounded in the leg, but still
able to walk, and old Aaron Halyard, the bo's'n. Aaron was running
at top speed toward the beach, trying to get to a small boat. A
little way behind him came the Captain.
"'Don't you tech me! don't you tech me!' screamed old Halyard.
"Black Pedro stopped and took careful aim, with the last of his
fourteen pistols. He pulled the trigger, but there was no report.
Something had gone wrong with the priming. The bo's'n reached the
boat, shoved off, and started to row for the ship. There was no
other boat, and Pedro could only watch him. The old man rowed to
'The Angel of Death,' climbed aboard, and commenced, with the help
of the boy, who had been left there, to get up the foresail. Then
they hoisted the anchor, and the 'Angel' moved slowly out of the
harbor. Black Pedro sat down on the beach, and watched it fade
from sight. When night fell 'The Angel of Death' was only a speck
on the horizon. Then the pirate chief returned to his cottage.
"On the following day a dreadful storm arose. Black Pedro knew
that no ship, manned only by an aged bo's'n and a cabin-boy,
could live through such a tempest. A few days later his worst
fears were realized, for by the wreckage that was washed ashore,
he knew that 'The Angel of Death' had gone to pieces in the storm.
When The Plank itself, worn smooth on its upper side by the
hundreds of feet that had passed over it, was tossed upon the
shores of Rum Island, the pirate sat down on the sand and sobbed
aloud. He knew that old Halyard and the cabin-boy must have
perished, and the noblest crew of buccaneers on whom the sun had
ever shone, were forever disbanded, and that he, their chief, was
now the last of the pirates, alone and deserted on an undiscovered
and unknown island.
"And there he lives to this day."
CHAPTER IV
WELL BURIED TREASURE
When Mr. Daddles finished his story there was a moment's silence.
Then Ed Mason asked:
"Is that all?"
"Isn't that enough?" inquired Mr. Daddles, "isn't that sad enough,
just as it is?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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